Orchid Beach

“And that’s why you and Jane are packing, isn’t it?”

“Could be.”

“The feds are out there right now combing the computer files at the com center. The vault will be open soon, too.”

“Funny, I don’t even know what’s in the vault, or on the computers, either,” Barney said. “I just ran a security force, that’s all. The feds have got nothing on me.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Holly said. “The feds aren’t all that interested in you, Barney. You’re mine now.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Barney asked.

“Well, let’s start with the state charges,” Holly replied. “There’s falsification of state records, perjured weapons applications, that sort of thing. But most of all there are two counts of murder in the first degree. Bob Hurst spilled everything, Barney, and I’ve got it all on tape.”

“Stand up,” Barney said, raising his gun.

Holly got slowly to her feet. “I hope you don’t think you’re going anywhere, Barney. There’s a local and statewide APB out on you already. You won’t get far.”

“I’ll use your police car,” Noble said, “and I’ll get as far as the Orchid Beach Airport. There’s a plane coming for me. I’ll be out of the country in two hours.”

“Barney, you didn’t say anything about a plane,” Jane said.

“I was just making the arrangements on the kitchen phone, honey,” Barney replied. Noble reached over and pulled Holly’s Beretta from her holster.

“Well, hadn’t we better get going, then?” Jane asked.

“Sure, honey, in just a minute.”

“You don’t get it, do you, Jane?” Holly said. “You’re not going anywhere; you never were. Barney was leaving here alone.”

“You shut up, damn you!” Jane spat.

Barney flipped off the safety on Holly’s pistol.

Holly knew that before another half a minute had passed, both she and Jane would be dead, and Barney would be on his way. “Think about it, Barney,” she said, and her heart was in her mouth.

“I already thought about it,” Barney replied, “but I didn’t know I was going to be lucky enough to get you, too, bitch.” He raised Holly’s weapon and fired two shots into Jane’s chest. She was thrown against the wall and collapsed on the floor.

As the second shot was being fired Holly moved. She ran at him and hit him low, driving her shoulder into a kidney and taking him down. Daisy got hold of an ankle.

Barney dropped one of the guns and used his free hand to take Holly by the hair, pulling her head back. But Holly had hold of his other wrist and was able to keep the gun pointed away from her.

Barney had size and strength on Holly, but she was younger and no weakling, and she had the advantage of desperation, not to mention Daisy’s help. His face was close to hers, and she managed to drive an elbow into his eye, hurting him enough that he let go of her hair. She tried to pin him to the floor, but he rolled over and dragged her to her feet, snaking an arm around her waist and taking her weight off the floor.

Daisy still clung to his ankle, resisting all attempts by Noble to kick her away. Holly jammed a thumb into his uninjured eye and twisted it, hanging on to his wrist for dear life. The gun went off once, then again, shattering a display of crockery with the first shot and putting the second dead center through the picture window. Holly could see a car in the street slow down for some rubbernecking.

Holly got some traction again and sank a punch into Barney’s solar plexus. Then, with all her strength, she drove him backward. The two smashed through the punctured picture window together, landing in the azaleas outside the window, taking Daisy with them, Holly on top. Barney was now virtually blind and very winded, and when Holly sank her teeth into his thumb he let go of the pistol. She rolled them both away from it and began punching him with both fists wherever she could—face, neck, belly. The sprinklers were soaking them both, and they were making the lawn muddy. Finally she got him turned over, facedown, with his wrist between his shoulder blades. She got that wrist cuffed and used the leverage to cause him enough pain that he stopped resisting. She cuffed both hands behind his back. “Release, Daisy,” she said to the dog, and Daisy backed off, still growling.

Holly got Barney up on his toes and marched him toward her police car. She shoved him into the backseat and slammed the door. He was as good as in a jail cell now, with the wire barrier between the front and rear seats, and rear doors that wouldn’t open from the inside. She went into the house and checked on Jane. She was dead. Then she went back to the car and grabbed the radio microphone.

“Base, this is the chief,” she said.

“This is base, Chief, go ahead.”

“Get an ambulance and a coroner out to Jane Grey’s address; she’s dead of a gunshot wound. Find Hurd Wallace and tell him to get out here, too, to secure the scene. I have Barney Noble in custody. I want a paramedic to treat him for superficial wounds at the station, when I get him there.”

“Roger, Chief,” the man said. “I’m on it.”

Holly put the microphone back in its cradle and turned to look at Barney Noble, who had struggled into a sitting position. One eye was already closed, and he was squinting at her with the other.

“Bitch,” he said.

“Barney,” she replied, “coming from you, that’s the highest praise I’ve ever had.”

CHAPTER

61

Holly waited for Hurd Wallace to arrive and take over the scene, then she drove Barney Noble to the station and booked him on three counts of homicide. Jane Grey was dead, and Holly was the eyewitness to her murder. She had never cared much for the death penalty, but now, in the case of Barney Noble, she had become enthusiastic.

When her work was done, she drove home, showered and tried to go to sleep. It couldn’t be done. She dressed in a fresh uniform and drove out to Palmetto Gardens. An FBI agent was manning the front gate.

“Where’s Harry Crisp?” she asked the man.

“At the com center, I think. I just let in some guy from the safe company.”

Holly drove into the compound and out to the com center. Federal agents, still in their black clothes and heavily armed, stood around the front door, looking bored.

“Harry inside?” she asked a man she knew.

“Yeah, Holly, go on in.”

Holly went into the building and downstairs to the vault room. Harry and a group of agents stood around watching a middle-aged man in a nerd outfit—polyester trousers, short-sleeved dress shirt, tie, pocket protector— open a briefcase, take out a sheet of paper and start to turn the dial on the door of the vault. He turned a large wheel, and the door swung open a few inches.

“Jesus,” Harry said, “how’d you do that so fast?”

“It was easy,” the man replied. “I had the combination.”

“Oh.”

“We keep the combinations of all our safes, just in case.”

Harry stepped forward, took hold of the door and swung it slowly open. “Okay,” he said, “let’s see what we’ve got here.”

Holly followed him inside the vault room, which was, she reckoned, about eighteen by twenty-four feet. She stopped and stared. The room was filled with steel shelving and crisscrossed by aisles. On many of the shelves,